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1 Level
754 Review
44 Karma

Review on πŸ”‰ Enhanced Sound Blaster AE-7 PCIe Sound Card, Quad-Core Processor, 127dB DNR ESS SABRE-class 9018 DAC, Xamp Discrete Custom Bi-amp, Discrete 5.1/Virtual 7.1, Dolby, DTS Encoding - Black by Karoly Reddick

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Great card. Strange software.

After so many years I've decided to upgrade my old Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D card. I have Beyerdynamic DT770 250 ohm headphones and haven't noticed any noticeable improvement in sound quality, which I consider normal; it's not "worse" sound quality, and the drivers are indeed updated for Windows 10. Installation is easy, but this map comes with ZERO instructions. There is a Molex connector (the old 5-pin power connectors we used for everything on our PCs), but it's ONLY USED FOR THE LIGHTING. You don't have to have it plugged in for the card to work. The most interesting thing, however, is that the card does not come with a SATA to Molex adapter. When you use this sound card for the first time, YOU WILL NOT DETECT THE HEADPHONES automatically. You need to go into the software, click the "SETUP" button, and then change the detection from SPEAKER to HEADPHONE. Why do I need this, Creative Labs? It's confusing and also incredibly stupid. The headphone jack should automatically detect the headphones, and that should be the end of it. At the very least, this option should be present on the dashboard. Because of this stupid decision they made in the software, I thought the card was buggy. Overall, the map isn't bad, but it's no better than its previous iterations. I would only get this if I didn't already have a dedicated sound card.

Pros
  • Great product
Cons
  • Long delivery time